According to the New York Times, this cat-like monkey-ish thing is a real coffee snob. The folks at Starbucks have nothing on this furry guy. Civets seek out and eat only the very best of the best coffee cherries in their Indonesian and Philippine habitats.
And then for whatever insane reason, Indonesians and Filipinos collect the partially digested coffee beans that the civets excrete in their dung so as to bring the world a great new high end beverage.
This has to be pretty close to the most revolting thing I've ever heard.
Drinking something made from roasted ground beans that another animal has technically eaten once already is akin to baking cornbread using the partially digested corn kernels that I ate off the cob yesterday that I passed this morning. Sorry for that colorful mental picture, but this is roughly what civet coffee sounds like.
Yet "connoisseurs" are willing to pay $150 per pound or more for these beans that have been scrutinized, eaten, and excreted by a fuzzy nocturnal raccoon that marks its territory by dragging its anal glands across the surface of interest.
Whatever possessed the Southeast Asian coffee growers to go rooting around in civet dung for the key to the best cup o' joe? I'm not sure even they can say.
"We are a bit surprised," the Times quotes a local as saying, in reference to civet coffee's growing popularity.
Me too. I think I'll give the cat-raccoon-monkey dung espresso a pass, thanks.
(Photo: Wikipedia)
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